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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Texas Rangers. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

50 FV Prospects

Calhoun doesn’t have a position (he’s been tried at third, second, and in the outfield since college), but he’s going to rake. Scouts have him projected for plus hit and power. He takes huge, beer-league-softball hacks but has the hand-eye coordination and bat control to make it work. He could yank out 30 or more homers as soon as he’s given regular at-bats. The corner-outfield and DH situation in Texas is pretty crowded, but he should start seeing regular big-league time this year. There’s some risk that Calhoun’s aggression is exploited the way Rougie Odor’s has been, but otherwise Calhoun looks like a stable mid-order slugger.
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The 2018 season is a big one for Clayton Kershaw. The three-time Cy Young winner isn’t just chasing the World Series ring that still eludes him, he’s trying to remain healthy wire-to-wire for the first time since 2015. At the end of the year, he’ll have the chance to reclaim his spot as the game’s highest-paid pitcher if he chooses to exercise an opt-out clause in the seven-year, $215 million deal he signed in January 2014.

Via the Los Angeles Times‘ Andy McCullough, neither Kershaw nor the Dodgers are tipping their hands as to what might happen beyond publicly agreeing that they’re maintaining an “open dialogue” regarding the soon-to-be 30-year-old lefty’s contract status. If he does opt out, he’ll co-headline a stacked free-agent class alongside Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, with Josh Donaldson, Dallas Keuchel, Craig Kimbrel, and Andrew Miller among the other luminaries. There’s no indication that Kershaw would rather pitch for another team besides the Dodgers, who drafted him with the seventh overall pick in 2006, but he may not get a better chance to hit free agency while so close to the top of his game.

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Felix Hernandez will play a crucial role in determining the fate of the Mariners’ season. Felix isn’t what he used to be, and no one expects him to return to that level, but we at least know that he should still have the stuff. The changeup and curveball are there, if he wants to miss bats. The issues have been more mechanical. Felix hasn’t had the command he needs to succeed at his velocity. There’s much attention, then, being paid to his delivery. A week and a half ago, he threw for the first time in spring training. He said the following about his session.

“I threw everything, curveball, changeup, sinker and one slider,” he said. “It was OK. I was better from the stretch than from the windup.”

Why?

“I was more balanced from the stretch,” he said. “I was moving all over the place from the windup.”

Perfectly standard, unremarkable quote from early spring. Felix had some rust to knock off. He felt better out of one of his deliveries than out of the other. But, well, hold on. Why does he have two deliveries? Why do so many pitchers have two deliveries? You’d think that maintaining one would be complicated enough.

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Pardon our inconsistency. On the one hand, we love having projections. Projections allow us to have an idea of what the future could bring. Projections let us think we know what’s going to happen, and we believe in them because they’ve proven themselves. On the other hand, we love the exceptional. That which doesn’t follow, that which takes us by surprise. We don’t want to actually know the future. We want for the world to mostly make sense, I suppose, but no one wants to close the door on the unpredictable. It’s the surprises that bring life to the living.

Tim Lincecum is back. Tim Lincecum is signing a major-league contract, having been inked by the Rangers. When Lincecum last pitched in the bigs, he might’ve been the very worst pitcher at the level. His ERA soared over 9, and the Angels couldn’t bring themselves to give him ten starts. If you want to get right down to it, the last year Lincecum was an effective major-league pitcher was 2011. That year’s best players by WAR were Jacoby Ellsbury and Matt Kemp. It’s been a long time since Lincecum was Lincecum, but hope blows on the embers of a dying fire. Baseball is better with Lincecum in it. There’s renewed reason to think he could surprise.

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When we last saw the Dodgers’ rotation, Yu Darvish was being lit up like a pinball machine in Game 7 of the World Series due to a pitch-tipping issue that the organization somehow failed to identify. Though the Dodgers made a serious run at retaining the 31-year-old righty, the team was limited by its financial constraints, and Darvish opted to sign a six-year, $126 million deal with the Cubs instead. With exhibition season now underway, the defending NL champions’ rotation still appears as though it could use fortification.

Darvish, a July 31 deadline acquisition from the Rangers, isn’t the only starter gone from the fold. In a mid-December move designed to give them more financial flexibility, the Dodgers dealt the injury-prone Brandon McCarthy (16 starts, 3.98 ERA, 3.28 FIP, 2.4 WAR) and Scott Kazmir (a mere 12 minor-league innings due to hip and arm issues), two other players, and cash to the Braves in exchange for Matt Kemp. The trade has helped them shimmy under the $197 million competitive-balance-tax threshold, but their subsequent failure to offload Kemp and some portion of his remaining $43 million salary for 2018-19 doomed their pursuit of Darvish.

Nobody’s weeping for a wealthy team that’s lost 25 starts while retaining eight of the 10 members from a unit that compiled the majors’ third-best ERA- (82) and FIP- (88). Compared to 2015, when they used an MLB-high 16 starters, and -16, when they tied for second with 15 starters, that counts as stability, and yet in each of the past two years, just one Dodger has reached the 162-inning threshold to qualify for the ERA title. The Andrew Friedman/Farhan Zaidi regime has actively used the team’s depth and financial might to lighten the workloads of all of their starters. Not only did the unit’s 885 innings rank 10th in the NL last year, but only 742 times did a Dodger starter face a batter for the third time in a game, the majors’ lowest total.

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We’ve heard all offseason that baseball teams are getting smarter. One of the strategies employed by those smart teams is to wait players out in free agency to get good deals. Todd Frazier signed for two years and $17 million, Eduardo Nunez received only $8 million in guarantees, Carlos Gomez just signed for $4 million, and Logan Morrison only received $6.5 million. Plenty of quality free agents remain, and the market isn’t looking robust. It certainly seems as though teams are winning and that the strategy of waiting has paid off.

Travis Sawchik found that the free agents who signed contracts during the early part of the current offseason ended up receiving about 5% less overall than their FanGraphs crowdsourced estimates predicted. In light of research by Max Rieper at Royals Review, that boded poorly for players. Rieper, who compared actual contract values to those estimated by FanGraphs crowdsource estimates over several years, found that players who sign early in the offseason typically fare much better (relative to the estimates) than those who sign later.

At first glance, it would appear that several prominent, recent free-agent signings seem to fly in the face of Rieper’s findings, though. As Ben Lindbergh mentioned in his recent post on the players’ share of revenue, Yu Darvish, Eric Hosmer, J.D. Martinez, all signed at or above their crowdsourced estimates. I would add the Brewers signing of Lorenzo Cain to that list, as well.

Is it possible that the waiting game hasn’t actually hurt free agents? Or is there something else going on here? With more data available, it might be time to revisit Rieper’s study with the current offseason included.

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Chris Young is in camp with the San Diego Padres, looking to extend a pitching career that began in 2000 when he was drafted out of Princeton University. It may be a tall task. The 6-foot-10 right-hander turns 39 in May, and he put up a 7.50 ERA last season in 30 ragged innings with the Royals. This could be his last hurrah, a fact he readily acknowledges.

“At some point my career will come to an end, as it does for everybody,” Young told me earlier this week. “I’m realistic about that. Over the offseason I had some of those conversations with people that I respect and admire within the game, but right now my focus is on playing. I feel good physically and the ball is coming out well, so I’m excited to compete for a spot.”

The conversations Young was referring to — with the exception of one coaching opportunity — were all in regard to front office work. Several organizations approached him about the possibility, and while no specific roles were discussed, there will undoubtably be follow-ups in the future. How soon that happens is the question that may be answered by opening day. Read the rest of this entry »

Each week, we publish in the neighborhood of 75 articles across our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.
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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the World Series champion Houston Astros. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

60 FV Prospects

When Whitley remade his physique during his senior year of high school, his stuff and command both ticked up, and they’ve continued to do so. He now sits 93-97. Whitley’s size and delivery create good angle up and down in the zone, and he can sink or cut his fastball if he wants to. He has a knee-buckling curveball, a hard slider, and a burgeoning changeup that has quickly developed into a plus pitch. Whitley’s delivery is a bit violent, but he throws strikes and already has impressive control for a pitcher this size, age, and with this kind of stuff. This unique combination of stuff, pitchability, and command allowed Whitley to traverse three levels last year, ending with four impressive appearances at Double-A. Whitley struck out 143 hitters in 92.1 innings. He doesn’t turn 21 until mid-September and has ace ceiling.

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I’ve been waiting for this. I’ve been waiting for this ever since I saw a tweet a little over a month ago.

With Cole, Astros now project at 103.5 2018 wins. Easily the highest pre-season W projection NEIFI has ever forecast.

— NEIFI Analytics (@NEIFIco) January 13, 2018

I don’t know much about the NEIFI projection system, and I don’t have access to its archives. I don’t know how far back it goes. The tweet, though, stuck in my memory, and for weeks I looked forward to what numbers would show up right here. We’ve always had the Steamer projection system numbers on display, but only the other day did we get to include ZiPS. So, things are pretty much final, pending injuries and a few further significant free-agent signings. The Astros’ roster looks set. Maybe there’s a bullpen battle or two. Whatever. Here are the current projected standings.

The Astros are projected to win 101 games. That’s an extraordinary total, and no one is close. I’ll acknowledge right here that this isn’t very surprising. Also, the Astros just actually won the World Series, so, who cares? A great team is a great team. I get it, and you can close this window if you want to. I’m just wired to delight in fun facts. I come carrying further fun facts.

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